


before and now

by jellijeans



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Bravely Secret Santa 2020, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28250202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellijeans/pseuds/jellijeans
Summary: Einheria asks her if she remembers what life was like before this, before everything; Mephilia remembers. Kind of.
Relationships: Einheria Venus & Mephilia Venus, Suleiman/Mephilia Venus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	before and now

**Author's Note:**

> this is my secret santa gift for chacusha!! hope you enjoy it!! it was a lot of fun writing mephilia, who i don't write for very often, and getting to explore her character a bit more. i imagine this taking place in bdff, a little bit before edea and the gang make their way into eternia to fight the sisters. hope you enjoy!! happy holidays!!

Einheria asks her if she remembers what life was like before this, before everything; Mephilia remembers. Kind of.

She hadn’t always been like this; once, she had been happy, her sisters by her side and her hand in Suleiman’s, and not so desperate to do...whatever the Grand Marshal is having her do. What is it, really? Why does she care? Something about the Florie wings; give them to DeRosa, watch Florem burn. Yes, that’s fine. She doesn’t really care how it happens. She just knows the hairpins create suffering, bring forth the deepest darknesses of the mind, turn the women of Florem into bitter, hateful killers. They make them understand how she feels. Cold and empty.

Another fairy wing crumples between her fingers; she doesn’t care. DeRosa has enough. He’s already poisoned Florem, already watches it rot from the inside out. Mephilia has already done what he asked, and even then, she’s only doing it for Einheria.

(She’s angry at Einheria, could strangle her for driving Suleiman away. Perhaps he’d be alive if she hadn’t driven him off. At the same time, she yearns for Einheria, to scream and sob into her arms like she did when they were children, to have someone  _ understand _ her. Oh, it hurts. To idolize her and hate her all at once.)

She wonders what Suleiman would think, if he could see her now. He had always been so kind, so patient with her before, when she had struggled to convey her words in a way anybody but Yulyana could understand, when she had sensed things others couldn’t, when she had just needed a break from being the prodigy. When she had needed arms to fall into, someone to hold her and tell her things would be alright.

Suleiman had done that for her, with his dashing smile and charming laugh. He had held her and loved her and kissed her and with him it had felt like their souls were one, finally complete within each other. He had known her when she was at her best, driven by the desire to truly understand the world around her, to push magic to its limits. He had known her when she was beautiful, in body and in mind, and he had loved her for it.

She is still beautiful in body. She is meticulous in her appearance, maintaining her hair and her outfit and even that of her subordinates. She is careful to never leave anything out of place, to make herself look as put together as possible. If only she didn’t fall apart every time she opened her mouth.

Her mind is ugly, ruined. She wonders if she will ever be able to move on. She misses him, so much that her body aches, that Girtablulu itches at her fingertips, begging to run rampant and destroy the cliffside she’s found for herself. She plucks another fairy wing and doesn’t feel bad about it.

The last time she had seen Suleiman, it had been the night before she was to return to Eternia. They had talked about her studies at first—as conversations were wont to do between the two of them, it shifted to other things. He laughed. She laughed, still put together, mind and body still whole, still perfect. He had kissed her, promised her he would return. He had held her and relished in her warmth, in the feeling of her between his arms, and she had drank in it, reveled in it.

She loved him. Crystals, she loved him. Loves him. Misses him more than she can say, misses him in a way no one can understand unless they’ve gone through it themselves. They will understand. She will  _ make  _ them understand.

He had been beautiful,  _ they _ had been beautiful; if they cannot have that, no one can.

Florem can wither and die, like all flowers do.

She ignores the look in Einheria’s eyes, the way her fingers skirt Mephilia’s shoulder before falling back to her sides, twitching, unoccupied. She thinks it may be concern; she doesn’t think at all much anymore. She wonders if Einheria regrets sending him away.

(Really, it’s not a “wonder”. Einheria’s regret tingles between her fingertips, runs its way up her arms and down her throat and warms her to the core, hot and then hotter until it burns. It’s not Suleiman, but it’s something. Anything to make her feel.)

“Mephilia—” Einheria’s voice, beautiful in its depth, its silkiness, breaks a little bit at her name, the edges dissolving in her mouth. “Know that if I could bring him back for you, I would. I would change it all for you.”

“He is gone,” she says simply. “He did not succeed.” Einheria’s eyes look heartbroken, blue as the sky and the rotting seas below. Is that what Suleiman’s looked like? She swallows, looks away to something, anything else—to the grass, to the fairies. To the fairy wing in her hands. Einheria watches as she snaps it in two. “Suleiman has been lost at sea. He never found Susano-o.”

“Barbarossa still looks for it for you. Suleiman wrote about it.”

Mephilia hesitates. The last of Suleiman is right there, right in front of her. She could find Barbarossa, once again go aboard his ship, fulfill Suleiman’s wish and find the summon he died for. It wouldn’t bring him back, but it would be something. She could find all of them, rebuild herself, piece by piece.

But there is the garden. There is her post, here with her sisters. There are the waves crashing below her, jolting against the cliffside. There are the fairies, and there is DeRosa. There is the Grand Marshal.

There is not Suleiman.

“I will leave it up to Barbarossa,” she says simply, turning away from Einheria, her dear beloved sister whose face she hardly even knows. Einheria’s mouth sets itself in a stern line, the one she imagines Suleiman saw when she drove him out. Love and hatred and nothingness churn inside her along with everything else. She pays it no mind.

“He will find it for you,” Einheria says, the words dripping out of her mouth slowly, nectar sweet in their worry.

The waves collide into the rock below and for a moment, Mephilia feels Suleiman in her arms once again, feels whole in his presence; it is gone as quickly as it started, and the beauty of the moment is ruined. The garden is once again just a garden. The fairy wings are just a tool. She is just Mephilia, and she lives just for Einheria, nothing more. After this, she will wait for new orders and try again.

“I would like that,” she says, words empty and bitter in her hollow throat.

Einheria looks down, fists tightening around her spears, and does not respond, but Mephilia can sense her tears.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!! hope you enjoyed!! if you want to yell with me, you can find me on twitter at @jellijeans!


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